


Good as Gone

by mytimehaspassed



Category: Kingdom (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drug Use, Drug-Induced Sex, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 13:12:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10361250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: Out of all of them, Christina was the last person that he thought he would tell.





	

Out of all of them, Christina was the last person that he thought he would tell. 

She brings a hand up to her mouth, maybe to hide her surprise, maybe to suppress her revulsion, and he looks away from her, concentrates on the coffee stains on the kitchen table, the concentric circles that he traces with the pad of his index finger, around and around and around. She says his name, this soft whisper that scrapes against him, this ache, louder than anything he’s heard in a long, long time, and she says it again, and again, again, until he looks up at her. 

“It’s not your,” she starts to say, and then shakes her head once, brushes the thought away, thinks better of it. There are tears in her eyes, and he can see that she’s pressing her lips into a thin, white line just to keep them from falling. She makes a move like she wants to place her hand over his, but doesn’t, her palms flat against the table. 

“It’s them,” she says. “It’s not you.” She breathes in slowly, and it catches deep in her chest. “You didn’t do this, they did this. You never asked for it; you didn’t deserve it.”

He laughs, short and sharp, but she doesn’t seem taken aback. “What is that from? NA?”

She spreads her fingers closer to his, almost touching. “After rehab, after what he did to me, it’s what I kept telling myself.” Her voice is steady, unwavering. “It helped me get over it, move on with my life.”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding, his ruthless smile. “It makes sense that nothing would ever be your fault, Mom.” He stands up, his chair screeching across the tiles. 

He turns to leave, but she stops him, says, “Nate,” in that same tone, her hand wrapping around his elbow. She looks like she wants to swallow him up, to hold him in her arms for hours. She looks like she wants him to promise her that he’s okay, that he will be okay, even with this invisible film stuck to his body, suffocating him, even with this open wound that won’t ever heal. 

“Please,” she says, and her voice is so familiar, so much like the mother he remembers from his childhood, from when he and Jay were little, before she fucked off with the drugs, with her pimp, that he almost goes to her, almost lets himself fall into her embrace. 

She sounds almost like she could be his mom again, like she really, truly deserves him. 

But then she says, “Please don’t tell Jay.”

And Nate laughs so hard that he starts to cry. 

***

If Jay does notice, he hides it well. 

At night, after Christina falls asleep in Jay’s old room and Jay slips from his well-worn couch into Nate’s bed, crawling under the covers, his arms folding over Nate’s own arms, his nose pressed against the back of Nate’s neck, the top of his spine there, Jay’s mouth wet against his skin, Jay touches him as if Nate is clean. Jay touches him as if he never feels the difference, as if the scars from this thing - this thing that happened to Nate - aren’t visible to anyone but Nate, as if he has remained the same person, as if he hasn’t changed. 

Jay touches him and Nate allows it, and Jay never asks him if he’s okay, if this is okay, and when he leaves in the morning to pretend that he’s waking up on the couch for the benefit of fuck only knows, Jay leans down and kisses Nate on the the mouth like he needs the breath from Nate’s lungs, like he knows that Nate’s never kissed anyone else. 

And Christina looks between them at breakfast, over the rim of her coffee cup, and she questions Nate with her eyes, pleads with him, silently, and when Jay goes to take a shower, a warm hand sliding across the back of Nate’s neck before he’s gone, Nate slams his hand down on the table between them, reveling in the fact that she jumps, startled. 

“Nate,” she says softly, like she’s trying to calm a wounded animal. 

“Fuck you,” he says, but it’s barely audible, and his tone is flat, unemotional. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” she asks. 

“Like I’m ruining him.” His fingers curl into a fist. “He doesn’t know.” 

And then, because he has to, because it tastes like something rotten in his mouth, he says, “He’ll never know.” And he almost believes it. 

She closes her eyes, her hands cupped around her mug, and it’s disgusting how visibly relieved she is, how much she cares about Jay’s sanity, even when she’s usually the one fucking it up. “Thank you,” she starts to say, but Nate doesn’t let her get the words out. 

“It’s not for you.”

She says, “Okay, Nate,” and smiles warmly. She doesn’t try to touch him, probably because even she knows that that’s a stupid idea right now, and she takes her coffee and slips back into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. 

A few moments later, Jay emerges from the shower with only a towel on, his skin warm and flushed and wet, the water from his hair dripping down Nate’s neck, his shoulder, when Jay leans down to kiss the corner of his mouth. Jay points to the full plate on the table, says, “Your breakfast is getting cold.”

And Nate doesn’t even look at him when he tells him he’s not hungry. 

***

The gym is barely a distraction, but he goes, anyway. 

Like always, Alvey fucks off to somewhere unknown and leaves Nate to fill his place, as the babysitter - watching Jay smile at him cruelly from across the floor, his sunglasses hiding his bloodshot eyes, his hands in his pockets, whistling sharply as the other boys undress, trading handshakes with Mac, money for drugs, high off his ass - and as Ryan's coach. Ryan asks Nate to spar with him, Nate’s taped hands and his back to the cage, Ryan overtaking him easily enough, getting at least three punches in for every one of Nate’s, and Nate lets him work out his aggression with little reparation, takes far more shit than Alvey would have, had Alvey been here doing his fucking job. Ryan notices little and cares even less, flipping Nate onto his back, trapping Nate’s arm between his thighs, their faces close enough that Nate can feel Ryan’s breath on his skin, heavy and sticking to him like a sheet. 

And that is what does it, Ryan holding him tightly for longer than he should, twisting Nate’s arm for longer than necessary, the press of their skin together, sweat-slick and hot, so goddamn hot, that’s what has Nate begging Ryan to let go, Nate crawling across the mat on useless hands, Nate barely making it to the bathroom before he vomits into the sink. 

His mouth still burning, he unravels the tape from his hands, roll by slow roll, and locks the door before Jay can come in, doesn't want anyone seeing him like this. He turns on the water and flushes the toilet just to have some noise other than the pounding of blood in his ears, and it sounds cacophonous, overwhelming, and Nate closes his eyes and clenches his hands into fists once, twice, shredding his palms where his fingernails dig too tightly. 

The pain is nothing to him, and he feels like he needs more, his fingers flexing again and again, the blood slick on his palms, like clawing and tearing and ripping this - whatever this feeling is - away from himself, this feeling in the pit of his stomach like he's done something wrong, like he is wrong. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and spits into the sink, his breathing shallow, his eyes gaunt and hollow as he looks at himself in the mirror. He can feel his heartbeat inside of his chest, can feel the prickling of his skin, this ghost of fingers, hands, mouths, breath on his face, his chest, hungry teeth, tongues, and this is something unremovable, this feeling, these memories. 

This is something he can’t remember clearly, something he won’t ever forget. 

He slams his head into the mirror, hardly feels the thrum of pain lighting up his skull. It drives the heartbeat from his ears, the rush of white noise, makes him think of the ring, of fighting, of what he used to be good at. 

And he does it again, again, again, until he starts to bleed. 

Ryan asks him if he’s alright when he leaves the bathroom, Ryan's eyebrows raising at the cut on Nate's head, and Nate smiles wearily through the blood, says he’s fine. 

All of them hear the lie, but none of them point it out. 

***

He goes to a club he’s never been before, the boys out front smiling devilishly when he slips past them. 

Someone touches the nape of his neck on the dance floor, a pass of fingers through his hair, and he doesn't feel anything. Someone else tugs him over by the belt loops of his jeans, presses his mouth to Nate's, the corner there, licks Nate's lips for him, tastes like alcohol and bad decisions, and Nate lets him. The press of bodies is almost too much to bear, but Nate had taken precautions before he had left the house, ignoring Jay's worried glance, the brush of Jay's nose light, lightly against Nate's cheekbone, had drunk a quarter bottle of Jack and taken two of Christina's Vicodin, and was now feeling more like himself than he has been for awhile. 

In the bathroom, a boy close to his own age locks him inside one of the stalls and presses him against the door, kissing everywhere except Nate's mouth. He pulls a condom out of his pocket and Nate knows the drill, turns around and undoes the zipper of his jeans, lets the other boy pull them down, his lips on Nate's shoulder blade. It's hot in the bathroom, noisy, the sounds of other men doing exactly this or more or less, the body heat of twenty, thirty sweaty, high men, more than there should be in a room of this size. 

The boy bites down on the place where Nate's shoulder meets his neck, tongues the teeth marks when he lets go. Nate doesn't say anything, doesn't make a sound, as the boy pants in his neck, calls him by another name. Nate pretends the name is his own, pretends he's someone else, lets the boy say his name over and over and over again, forgets he’s pretending.

He’s not himself, he’s more than himself, he’s who he wants to be. 

The boy breathes on Nate’s shoulder, and Nate reaches back and palms the boy’s head, runs his hand through his wet hair, licks the sweat off of his fingers. He can feel the stall door vibrating with their bodies, can feel the men on the other side, wants to watch himself through their eyes, flushed and stained and flayed open, his insides spilling out onto the floor. 

The boy comes.

Nate doesn't. 

***

Jay won’t give him any drugs, so Nate resorts to pilfering from his stash, weed and uppers and then coke and E, not enough to arouse suspicion, but enough that Jay starts to watch him when he thinks Nate’s not looking. High Nate is talkative and laughably easy, crawling up Jay’s body on the couch in the middle of the night, undoing the drawstring on Jay’s sweatpants, slipping his hand between the cotton and Jay’s skin, puling and pulling. Jay wakes up halfway through and Nate kisses him once and then twice, slow and slower, Jay’s lips between his teeth. 

Jay sighs Nate’s name, and Nate’s smile is radiant between them, and Jay comes with his mouth against Nate’s, and Jay repays him in kind, his tongue on Nate’s chest, lower, his stomach, lower, his thighs, and neither of them talk about it when Nate spends an hour crying in the bathtub fully-clothed when he finally comes down. Jay sits on the toilet lid and holds Nate’s hand and tells him that it will be alright, even when he doesn’t know that it will be alright. 

It’s reminiscent of Christina, back when she was their mom, back before Alvey threw her out, before the pimps and prostitution, when she was just an addict. 

Nate says, “I don’t want to talk about it,” even though Jay never asked the question, Nate’s hoarse voice and the horrible way he looks at Jay, like he’s afraid of him, like he’s afraid of himself, afraid of what he’ll do. 

Jay says, “Okay.”

Jay says, “That’s fine.”

The bright phosphorescent light glaring down at them both, glinting off the porcelain of the sink, the bathtub, Jay rubbing his eyes with one palm, older than his years, Jay says, “I’m here, whether you want me or not.”

And Jay’s reassuring smile is blurred when Nate looks up at him. 

***

He pays the bills with the money Will gave him. 

He understands Christina more than he ever wanted to. 

***

There’s a joint for breakfast and a long, hot shower where he presses his face against the tiles and breathes for what feels like hours, days, and a stop by the gym to train with Ryan for a few rounds before Alvey checks back in from planet wherever and then Jay corners him in the bathroom and kisses the side of his mouth until Nate relents and starts kissing back and then there’s fast food for dinner, paying the drive through cashier with money that’s stained with Nate’s infidelity, his crutch, his blood, and then there’s video games with his headphones on until Jay comes back from some party smelling of alcohol and sweat and sex and Nate whispers to him to be quiet, fucking hell, and Jay falls against his side on the couch laughing loudly and places his fingers in all of Nate’s favorite spots, and they hear Christina cough in in her bedroom and they both stop, silent, waiting for her bedroom light to turn off, and when it does Jay is begging Nate to touch him, to fuck him, all over, please, Nate, please, so Nate does, because if nothing else he wants to want to do it. 

He locks the bedroom door behind them, Jay’s hands down Nate’s pants, and Nate saying Jay’s name like it’s glass in his mouth, cutting his tongue, and Jay kisses him until his lips are bruised, his face and chest and thighs, swallowing him whole. Jay opens Nate’s mouth with his fingers, pressing his thumb inside, his own mouth preoccupied, and Nate thinks of skin that’s not Jay’s, tastes it in the back of his throat, and he makes a small, involuntary sound, and then he’s coming, Jay’s fingers gripping Nate’s chin hard enough to break his jaw. 

Jay says, “Jesus,” when he finally pulls away, and Nate knows that Jay’s come in his own pants, and it would be arousing if Nate had felt anything at all. 

Jay’s still buzzed from the party, so he looks up at Nate with a bleary, languid smile, and says, “You’re so fucking hot, Nate.”

And Nate closes his eyes at the admission, the pure reverence in Jay’s voice, Jay’s fingers still on his face, and says, “I love you.”

He means it, more than Jay could ever know. 

“I love you, too, idiot,” Jay says, laughing, and Nate opens his eyes and wants to be someone else, for his sake, for Jay’s. 

He wants to say, “I need you to know something.”

He wants to say, “I need your help.”

Instead he says nothing and Jay never knows. 

***

He hardly sleeps anymore; the dreams terrify him.

***

Jay stays that night, pressed flush against Nate’s back underneath the sheets, Jay’s nose brushing the top of Nate’s spine. Nate watches the clock until morning, waits for the sun to start rising over his window, the slow creep of dawn across the carpet, before he pretends to wake up, kissing Jay on the temple, his hand warm over Jay’s heart. 

Jay says, “Good morning,” and Nate says it back, and they lay there for a minute or two, looking at each other, before Jay tells him he’s got to piss like a racehorse and quickly extricates himself from the tangled sheets, kissing Nate with his dry, chapped lips once, twice, three times. Nate watches him go and tries to draw strength from something inside of him, something that wasn’t there before. 

He feels like vomiting, like crying, like getting high. 

He wants to burn everything and start over, he wants to go to Christina and tell her to get the fuck out of their lives again, that she’s never been wanted here, not like this, not when she has the propensity - the power - to fuck up their lives with just a few words. Just a few fucking promises. 

He breathes, and it’s tight in his chest. 

Jay sneaks back into his room, slips under the covers again, and says, “Mom’s already left for work.” His fingers worm themselves just under the band of Nate’s boxers, warm, sliding across his belly again and again. 

“Jay,” Nate says, and it’s more of a warning than not. 

Jay laughs and says, “What?”

And it’s ridiculously easy to pull his hand out and hold it between them, this barrier that neither of them can cross. Nate says, his voice like ice, his tongue like metal in his mouth, “I have to say something, and you’re not going to like it.”

And Jay pauses, the smile frozen on his face. “Is this about what’s been going on with you lately? Did something happen?” He reaches out to touch Nate, but Nate pulls back, their hands still pressed together. “Nate.”

Nate looks at him, Jay’s worried eyes, and he wants to give in, he wants to curl up against him and never look back, forget about everything that happened, everything Bob did and didn’t do, every touch and taste and kiss and every time one of them made him come and like it, and Nate wants to cry and scream and bleed himself dry. He wants to tell Jay never mind, he wants to tell him not to worry, he wants Christina to be right for once in her goddamn life. 

He wants to be okay with himself. 

He wants to be fucking okay. 

Jay shakes their hands and says, “For fuck’s sake, Nate, please.”

And Nate’s breath hitches, the loudest sound in the room. 

And he tells him.


End file.
